[Editor’s Note: The GEM is a real estate tech think-tank comprised of 500+ founders, executives, VCs, and practitioners. Our mission is to attract the 1,500 most forward-thinking, and diverse, innovators.

Below is a sample of one of the in-depth startup briefings from our Blueprinting Proptech series that members have full access to for only $129/quarter.]

Without further ado…

Blueprinting Proptech: PadSplit (Series II, Part III)

BY DREW MEYERS
Last Updated November 29th, 2021

An housing startup based in Atlanta focused on affordability without subsidy, Padsplit operates a marketplace for shared lower-cost housing specifically designed for the workforce renter. PadSplit brings inventory online by creating co-living environments that are safe, attractive, respectable, and accessible to those who can only afford up to $750 per month in rent. It makes shared housing more profitable by making it more affordable. As a Public Benefits corporation, part of its charter stipulates that it provide housing to people earning below 80 percent of the area’s median income, which varies from as low as $32,000 to as high as $64,000.

The company has a fully distributed workforce and no physical office space.

Founded: 2017
Total funding: $35 million
Last funding: Series B
Team size: 110
Sector: Rentals / Shared Housing

GEM Representation: Atticus LeBlanc (co-founder), Frank Furman (co-founder), Courtney Cooper (investor, Alate Partners), Aaron Block (investor, MetaProp), and Matt Hoffman (prior investor on behalf of Enterprise Community Partners)

Related Transmissions

• Co-opting Inventory (#173)

Learn more: Website // Crunchbase

BIZ BRICKS

the foundation to company comprehension

Product: Tenants find flexible, long-term rental options that include furniture, utilities, and access to public transit, all without a minimum credit score and for less than $750 per month. Rooms are move-in ready, have no long-term obligation, and include service amenities designed to help tenants increase the prospect of moving up the socioeconomic ladder, such as free access to telehealth services.

The company helps real estate investors increase the yield of their existing properties, typically single-family rentals, by providing the playbook for converting the physical space into one conducive to communal living, which provides the opportunity to increase gross rents. For instance, rather than a landlord renting a 3-bedroom house for $1,750 to a family or three roommates who have pre-formed as a group, the house is reconfigured into 5 bedrooms, each of which might rent for $500 and gross $2,500 (a 42% increase). PadSplit handles marketing, leasing, and resident management, but owners are responsible for on-site property management.

Customers: Primarily low-income workers earning less than $35,000 a year—with an average income around $25,000. The average age is 39, with a range from 19-83 years old.

Traction: Padsplit operates more than 2,500 units across Atlanta, Houston, Richmond, Tampa, Indianapolis, New Orleans, and San Antonio, with multiple new markets under development.

Business model: Landlords pay a 12% recurring platform fee on collected rents (distributed monthly to owners) plus a 2.75% flat-rate transaction fee, for 14.75% total fees.

DISTRIBUTION

the action or process of supplying individuals and other businesses with products or services

Demand side: Word of mouth certainly plays a role, with tenants telling their network about the housing. But the reality is that housing supply is so bad, that there are few options and virtually unlimited demand. The company prides itself on having supply that looks and feels like any property on a street, if not better. Even if that wasn’t the case, bad supply would still be full.

Supply side: Housing supply is PadSplit’s biggest growth obstacle. The company primarily works with investors who already own single-family homes or buy SFR assets specifically to work with PadSplit. Not every market or every house is conducive to the company’s business model. Market restrictions vary relative to the number of unrelated parties that can live in a single-family residence. If that max is three persons, then the amount of rent collectible under the PadSplit model could very well be equal to or less than renting it using standard practices.

Until now, PadSplit property owners have been mostly professional investors who have made physical improvements to their properties to enable co-housing (smaller bedrooms, communal spaces, technology compatible with the PadSplit OS). However, PadSplit TurnKey is a new initiative that offers select PadSplit Hosts the opportunity to invest in a truly turnkey property, one underwritten, sourced, renovated, and managed by PadSplit’s team—giving anyone the same power that large institutional investors have at their disposal. Helping more people invest and create “PadSplits” is the path to faster growth.

COMPETITION

the entities with whom one is competing; the opposition

While talk about the challenges of affordable housing access is plentiful, there are very limited solutions. Most companies tackling the market have gone upscale—micro apartments for affluent millennials.

PadSplit is not co-living for the urban affluent—it is for those requiring rents at or below $750 per month, who usually live on their own. Accessible housing for this market cohort includes staying at extended-stay motels, illegal units (often overcrowded and unsafe), and ‘functional homelessness’ (such as couchsurfing or car-sleeping). It’s this differentiator that makes PadSplit’s true competition much lower than others innovating in the cohousing space—many companies reimagining coliving for urban environments offer high-end solutions with dog-walking, yoga classes, happy hours, and pick-up/drop-off dry cleaning. Yet the core selling points of coliving — better geography and housing quality at a lower cost by sharing — holds just as true for lower-income residents. HomeRoom is the startup to PadSplit’s model with a similar target customer demographic.

Craigslist is the main elephant in the room on the discovery side and has been for decades. Beyond that are a wide range of national and international search platforms, such as SpareRooms and Coliving.com (more than 11,000 rooms available globally). Nooklyn is a niche local solution helping people find and share apartments in New York City. Nesterly matches the elderly in need of companionship with housemate connections across generations and cultures, while Silver Nest screens homesharing opportunities for hosts, handles leases and payments, and even offers insurance coverage. It’s also impossible to have this conversation without mentioning Airbnb, which got its start helping people rent spare rooms, couches, and even floors to strangers. Its origins are the very definition of shared living, though it’s obvious that its core business now comes from renting entire homes, not bedrooms.

None of these, however, limit their customer base to low-income housing opportunities. Nor do the more modern, vertically integrated approaches like Bungalow—which similarly repurposes assets but focuses on a more affluent audience and has raised $171 million—and Loftium, which struggled during the pandemic due to its reliance on booking travelers into shared rooms, rather than renting entire homes (a segment that boomed).

The DIY search engines that combine coliving options at every income level, coupled with a steady stream of more affluent solutions, have left a gaping need in the market to serve this historically underserved population. Because PadSplit aligns incentives among residents, property owners, and communities, the company is making affordable housing possible for the private market.

DIFFERENTIATION

the action or process of differentiating one’s product or service

Social Impact: Commitment to its mission includes providing housing for people earning below 80% of the area median income. It’s really the only organization targeting that lower income demographic, even though it’s much bigger. Because it’s hard work. For example, PadSplit can’t screen based on credit score or based on income the way most co-living companies, landlords, and providers do. Instead, it has to invent different ways to screen for high-quality residents. To solve the affordability shortage, both housing supply and housing access have to be addressed, and I’m not aware of another solution that addresses both issues.

Lower turnover: Its pre-screened member pool and all-encompassing weekly billing lead to less churn among tenants. All members undergo a background check for the safety of other PadMates and meet approval criteria, including providing verification of their employment. Members also agree to membership rules and are eligible for fines and/or strikes if they violate a rule.

Resident management: While not a full property management company, PadSplit does staff a dedicated call center for resolving resident disputes so that landlord’s don’t have to.

Roommate matching: The service empowers tenants to match themselves directly.

HYPE

extravagant or intensive publicity or promotion

According to PadSplit CEO Atticus LeBlanc, “If you believe that we need a workforce, period, full stop, then you have to house those people. Your choices are you can pay for that housing creation. … Or do you want to capture one percent of the existing residential space that’s already created?” This is a core motivating belief that has kept PadSplit committed to moving the needle not only on affordability, but also in alleviating other important tangential issues for its core market. Incoming PadSplit residents that make weekly rent payments on time see their credit scores increase more than 100 points over the first three months—88% of its residents have improved their credit scores. Plus, customers typically save an average of $450 a month on housing and transportation when they move to a PadSplit.

A few trends underlie its model: Bigger housing stock, smaller families, and flat incomes. The platform bridges the mismatch between those trends and balances them by putting more people into existing spaces. It’s far cheaper to bring existing supply online than it is to build new supply.

The PadSplit solution has also unlocked new housing supply at a far faster rate than government subsidy programs—the numbers are staggering, in fact. LeBlanc shared that the country has a gap that’s largely stayed around 12 million units nationally, while low-income housing tax credits from the government have created 3 million units in the last 30 years. PadSplit’s roughly thousand units that it created with no public subsidy of taxpayer money has saved taxpayers roughly $203 million in upfront capital costs alone if those units had been produced by the tax credit program.

Look, we all know deep interpersonal challenges exist in shared living situations. But PadSplit is doing the hard work that no one else will and creating a huge moat in the process. PadSplit is all substance.

THE BLUEPRINT SESSIONS

a podcast for exceptional founders of exceptional startups that are disrupting the real estate industry

View episode 4:

CRYSTAL BALL

a means or method of predicting future events

When people think of communes, they think of Kibbutzim in Israel and ashrams in India. And others think of “cults,” such as Jonestown, rather than communes. Gillian Morris “use[s] ‘commune’ to describe a set of adults living together by choice rather than economic necessity, where any ‘profits’ made are shared by the community.” In that sense, all of a sudden we’re talking about how a massive segment of the population lives in their late teens and twenties, as they move from college housing to splitting pads at their first low-paying jobs.

Clearly, helping landlords place tenants more effectively is the most obvious monetization route. But a follow-on opportunity exists: a SaaS offering to manage communes. Software could help add certainty, convenience, accountability, and credit-building to the dated practice of communal living.

In every shared house, generally, one person serves as the house accountant and rule enforcer. Most groups of roommates aren’t willing to pay to find additional house mates, but I suspect many would pay for a tool that eases their own workload (aka solves the manual mess).

I’m a huge believer in the power of shared living, both socially and economically. It’s the best of both worlds. An operating system for any shared single family residence with roommates is a product I’ve yet to see. In other words, PadSplit should launch the communeOS so that more people can experience the power of shared living—without one person having to shoulder the burden.

Even without a SaaS offering, PadSplit has other intriguing and viable avenues for future growth centered on the power of offering housing-backed financial services to tenants. The company’s mission to use housing as a means to provide overall financial independence presents a unique opportunity for PadSplit to branch into additional financial products (like lending and investing), more robust access to healthcare, and even jobs. Serving as a bank for its customer base by using their rents as collateral is an untapped and incredibly compelling market proposition.

the GEM BRIEFING

A PRIVATE GROUP OF INDEPENDENT THINKERS, FREE FROM SPONSORED MESSAGES, SALES PITCHES AND NOISE

There are four parts to membership:

• Long-form articles covering the spectrum from shipping container co-living spaces to the battle for listing acquisition in the first iBuyer world war (Weekly Transmission). Examples: A Waking of the iBuying Elephant, Certainty as a Service, The Undisrupted: A Portrait of Blue Collar America, Requiring Employers to Assist Employees with Housing Would Unleash Innovation, and Filling the Emerging iBuyer Vacuum.
• Curated real estate, startups, & built world links & analysis blended with out of the box ideas (Weekly Radar).
• Special reports (a category review of Small Landlord Prop Mgmt Software & quarterly earnings summaries).
• Networking opportunities with 500+ innovators from across the globe through the private forum & in-person gatherings.

With a mission to attract the 1,500 most forward-thinking, and diverse, innovators, we’re looking for the best and brightest in all the land...

Membership is $129 / quarter (less than 20 spots left at this pricing)

READY TO JOIN RIGHT NOW?

Apply for Membership

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The post Blueprinting Proptech: PadSplit appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

We have a job opportunity to share from a member of the GEM, Verisk: Product Marketing Manager for Xactware.

The opportunity:

Xactware is looking to add a Product Marketing Manager to the team.  As a Product Marketing Manager, you will:

• Manage products and projects while coordinating closely with and mentoring marketing coordinators.
• Develop product positioning and messaging that differentiate Xactware products in the market.
• Sales enablement – communicate the value proposition of the products to the sales team and develop the sales tools that support the sales process
• Product launch – plan the launch and go-to-market strategies for product releases. Manage the cross-functional implementation of the plan to ensure all internal stakeholders are prepared for product releases.
• Market intelligence – be the expert on buyers, how they buy and their buying criteria; be the expert on the competition and how beat them
• Market research and messaging – conduct research to specify market needs and requirements for current and future product opportunities.
• Demand generation – develop strategies and manage the marketing programs that drive demand for your products
• Support the entire product life cycle from strategic planning to tactical activities

Qualifications

• Marketing, business, or related degree. Equivalent experience also considered.
• The ideal candidate will have 5+ years of strategic PropTech marketing experience in the real estate, property management, construction, default servicing, or remodeling markets.
• Provides mentorship and guidance to product marketing team members.
• Preference given to candidates with a working knowledge of project management, email automation, digital marketing, technical and business writing, lead generation, or advertising.
• Ability to handle a high number of simultaneous projects and keep them on schedule, reporting on KPIs for projects under stewardship.
• Must be able to manage the planning, development, budget, and execution of marketing efforts for various products and/or brands, including product messaging and collateral.
• Must be detail oriented with strong analytical and business problem solving skills, including financial analysis, ROI analysis, SWOT analysis, and customer segmentation.
• Must have the ability to translate product technologies into customer benefits.
• Must be comfortable presenting to internal stakeholders. Must have excellent people skills and be comfortable interacting with staff, cross-functional teams, and third parties.
• Must be able to manage priorities on multiple projects with tight deadlines while still achieving exceptional results.
• This position may require occasional travel.

Interested?

Learn more and Apply

The post Proptech Job Opportunity: Product Marketing Manager appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

The GEM exists to serve as an exclusive, objective lens into the trends, companies, people, and ideas shaping real estate technology. We do that through thought-provoking written analysis—like our first GEM series kicked off by Greg Fischer that dissected a range of players in the small landlord property management software sector—and, more recently, a podcast collaboration with Rob Hahn. Part of fulfilling our mission to help members build wildly successful real estate companies is educating potential investors, partners, and customers about the great companies that we uncover.

To that end, toward the end of 2021, we launched a written series: Blueprinting Proptech (riffing on our podcast, “The Blueprint Sessions”). The goal is to introduce a structured methodology to analyze early-stage companies paving the future of property technology.

We’ll take a positive outlook, yet we won’t shy away from pointing out weaknesses, should they surface. Sector diversity is a strength that we’ll lean into. Our goal is to find the most transformative companies at the early-stage, no matter their focus. That said, we may also cover later stage companies we believe in. Also, to be clear, GEM membership is not a requirement for being profiled in this series (though we would love to have founder representation in the GEM for all companies).

THE TIME IS RIGHT
Thoroughness is critical to a comprehensive understanding of a company’s prospects. We believe hype and viability are not one and the same. We believe the next proptech titans are being created today.

We haven’t done a good enough job at dissecting companies individually, as most Transmissions focus on analyzing a specific point of view. That was a big part of what led to collaborating with Robert Hahn and Lynette Keyowski on The Blueprint Sessions.

Our podcasting goal centered on providing a space for real estate startup founders to tell their stories to those who most need to hear them: potential investors, business partners, and forward-looking industry influencers. Besides the financials and the strategy, we explored the human stories of the incredible entrepreneurs creating the future. In our quest to foreshadow the future real estate and broader built world environments being created, we are doubling down on highlighting those companies poised to become future category kings. Podcasting consumption requires long-form attention, while the written word allows more concise, pointed analysis. Both have a place.

In our initial written company analyses in the Blueprinting Proptech series, we’re looking at CityBldr, Module, Rabbu, Flock Homes, Padsplit, and Foxy AI.

We’ll break each company down into seven core components that offer a complete company profile. Each comprehensive analysis will cover the following elements:

BIZ BRICKS
the foundation to company comprehension

DISTRIBUTION
the action or process of supplying individuals and other businesses with products or services

COMPETITION
the entities with whom one is competing; the opposition

DIFFERENTIATION
the action or process of differentiating

HYPE
extravagant or intensive publicity or promotion

THE BLUEPRINT SESSIONS
a podcast for exceptional founders of exceptional startups that are disrupting the real estate industry

CRYSTAL BALL
a means or method of predicting future events

MOVING PROPTECH FORWARD
Blueprinting Proptech is about more than just profiling great companies—we’re committed to separating the wheat from the chaff. Which companies have transformative potential to emerge as category kings in their respective lanes? What are the biggest opportunities, and which companies are closest to capturing them? And which companies offer more substance than simply hype?

We’ll start with the six companies profiled on The Blueprint Series podcast. We’ve already published the analysis for Module and PadSplit, with Rabbu being dropped later this week.

Are you a proptech executive or VC, and interested in reading the full articles? Please apply to the GEM below.

the GEM BRIEFING

A PRIVATE GROUP OF INDEPENDENT THINKERS, FREE FROM SPONSORED MESSAGES, SALES PITCHES AND NOISE

There are four parts to membership:

• Long-form articles covering the spectrum from shipping container co-living spaces to the battle for listing acquisition in the first iBuyer world war (Weekly Transmission). Examples: A Waking of the iBuying Elephant, Certainty as a Service, The Undisrupted: A Portrait of Blue Collar America, Requiring Employers to Assist Employees with Housing Would Unleash Innovation, and Filling the Emerging iBuyer Vacuum.
• Curated real estate, startups, & built world links & analysis blended with out of the box ideas (Weekly Radar).
• Special reports (a category review of Small Landlord Prop Mgmt Software & quarterly earnings summaries).
• Networking opportunities with 400+ innovators from across the globe through the private forum & in-person gatherings.

With a mission to attract the 1,500 most forward-thinking, and diverse, innovators, we’re looking for the best and brightest in all the land...

Membership is $129 / quarter (less than 20 spots left at this pricing)

READY TO JOIN RIGHT NOW?

Apply for Membership

NOT QUITE READY?

Sign Up for our Sneak Peek

The post Announcing Blueprinting Proptech, a structured methodology to analyze early-stage proptech companies appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

[Editor’s Note: We publish a Weekly Transmission for GEM members, a series of long-form articles covering the spectrum from shipping container co-living spaces to the battle for listing acquisition in the first iBuyer world war. Below, we look forward to 2022 with a range of predictions to answer the question, “What’s next in proptech?” Two trends covered – affordable housing and blockchain/crypto/meta/web3 – are topics we will be exploring deeper with new GEM workgroups in 2022 and beyond. Many links included are to members-only articles, so won’t be accessible without a membership already set up.]

Last year’s central prediction theme was de-carbonization. Fresh off watching “Don’t Look Up,” there’s no other option than to focus on climate change for the second year running. It’s an imperative: We must act now. Not a year from now. Not ten years from now. Right now. As I said a year ago, “No matter where you stand in the debate about the causes of climate change, it’s coming.”

And count on the fact that proptech will not escape these changes.

While mega fundings will still happen (following on the heels of Blend, Divvy, Plume, Service Titan, Entrata, Pacaso, and others in 2021) it’s simply not enough to sprinkle “climate tech” deals into the mix. We need to overlay climate on top of EVERY deal. Investors need conviction to not invest in companies contributing to the world’s carbon footprint.

A couple of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time are beyond bullish. At the Middle East Green Initiative Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Larry Fink, the CEO and Chairman of Blackrock stated: “It is my belief that the next 1,000 unicorns…won’t be a search engine, won’t be a media company, they’ll be businesses developing green hydrogen, green agriculture, green steel and green cement.” Meanwhile, Bill Gates mentioned in an interview at the virtual SOSV Climate Tech Summit that future returns in climate investing will be comparable to what the biggest tech companies have produced. “There will be eight Teslas [or] 10 Teslas. And only one of them is well known today.” Count on multiple “Microsoft, Google, [and] Amazon-type” companies, too.

Michael Beckerman, CEO of CREtech Climate, says:

The climate crisis represents the single greatest threat the real estate industry has ever faced. It’s also our industry’s most potent opportunity for both impact and financial gain. With real estate contributing a staggering 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions (embodied and operating carbon emissions), the world is demanding action. Government is beginning to aggressively legislate carbon reductions from the Built World. Tenants are demanding healthy and safe environments for their employees. And employees are prioritizing ESG in their career choices more than anytime in history. Meanwhile, lenders, investors, and insurers are going to make it very difficult and costly for real estate companies to operate without transparency into their carbon emissions. Then factor in the tremendous financial exposure for real estate companies in climate risk zones, and it’s clear no other industry has so much to lose as a result of the climate crises in the next decade as real estate.

While it will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 trillion-$20 trillion to decarbonize the Built World, many in the industry are responding to this crises with the urgency it requires. They are leading the way in new NetZero developments, making current properties much more energy efficient, launching large climate tech funds focused on real estate and also helping to incubate many exciting and promising technology solutions. Companies such as Boston Properties, Oxford Properties, Hudson Pacific, Jamestown, JLL, CBRE, Savills, FifthWall, AO Proptech, 2150.VC and many others are showing that there are indeed strategies and solutions that can make a real difference in getting to NetZero. Unfortunately, without a massive global commitment from the majority of the real estate sector, the largest industry on Earth, we simply won’t get there in time to mitigate the worst of the coming climate crises.

Countless of the world’s leading voices agree that the time to act is now. Luckily for those willing to lead the new wave of climate tech, this unique moment will jumpstart some of our industry’s most financially lucrative opportunities.

Below is a range of trends of interest and predictions for 2022, sourced from GEM members.

PROPTECH TRENDS

WEALTH MANAGEMENT TAKES CENTER STAGE
Drew Meyers // Founder, Geek Estate

I stand firm in my belief that agents and brokerages who don’t make the jump to wealth managers will be out of the business in five or 10 years. You may also recall that Ryan Coon called for the continued convergence of real estate and personal finance in our 2020 predictions.

2022 will be the year that the deep intertwining of real estate, finance, and wealth management becomes utterly apparent. I’ll admit that Truebill and its 2.5 million members were a foreign company to me prior to Rocket Cos’ $1.275 billion investment in the personal finance app. But the sheer size of investment in the trend is a staggering bet by a $30 billion dollar mortgage giant. They aren’t dummies, nor are they messing around. The next step is layering an Awning-esque investment brokerage on top of Truebill. That, and more, is coming. The waters are getting increasingly murky for real estate agents who aspire to capitalize on consumers’ desire for investment advice: They will need to understand the entire landscape to thrive.

HOUSING AFFORDABILITY
Matt Hoffman // Partner, HousingTech Ventures

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” As The Who so aptly sang in Won’t Get Fooled Again. The year ahead is unlikely to look too different from 2021 as we continue to stagger from the effects of Covid-19, coupled with the looming uncertainty of the 2022 elections in November and the ongoing chorus of complaints about housing unaffordability by those: doing nothing about it, continuing to do the same things that are enabling it, or actively opposing innovation and change in order to protect their own little patch of dirt.

Having said that, here are some things that I expect to see in 2022:

1. Consolidation: A bunch of housingtech startups are going on their third or fourth years in need of cash and market share, and all of them  are seeking the same customer.  As gas tanks empty, expect to see a slew of mergers between startups with similar and complementary solutions. The cream of the crop will get picked up by the largest incumbents, such as RealPage, CoStar, and Zillow.

2. Agitation: We are going to start to see pushback on the single family rental market as jurisdictions enact “no-rent” covenants on detached single family homes (not unlike in some condo regimes).

3. Identification: Bad actors in the multifamily market are going to be exposed at a greater rate as municipalities adopt technologies that enable more transparency with regard to violations and enforcement, and empower renters to document and pursue their rights.

4. Re-imagination: Work from home has given the suburbs new life and threatened some cities (e.g. DC lost 2.9% of its population in 2021). Planners, politicians, and business groups are more actively engaged than ever in figuring out what a different future looks like, and that means opportunity for people with innovative housing solutions.

5. Digitization: we will lay the groundwork in 2022 for a blockchain based real estate economy that will be the SOP in 2025, from title, to finance, to closings, to tax, to brokerage, to fractionalized ownership.

Regardless of how 2022 plays out, expect a growing group of people dedicated to making the housing market a more transparent, equitable, profitable, and sustainable place to do business…and the GEM will play a role in bringing them to the table.

RACING TOWARD BUYSIDE EXTINCTION
Jim Klinge // Broker, Compass

Eliminating buyer-agents is the easy solution to reach buyside extinction, and it’s well underway. Redfin has dumbed-down buyer representation by paying their newest agents $50 to open the door for buyers. These new agents literally have no experience or anything to offer the buyers as far as advice, and are directed to the professional agent back at the office for help—oh, great, to someone who has never seen the home. The resulting trend is to expect nothing from buyer-agents, and now the big listing teams treat outside agents like the enemy. Buyer-side commissions are dwindling, there is no transparency about making offers, and buyer-agents are treated with disdain. By now, home buyers don’t think they need help—heck, they can find all the homes for sale online—what else is there? When they find one they like, they can reach out directly to the listing team. Soon, there will be no need for the MLS, and the search portals will be optional. But the listing agent can, and will, charge 4% to 5% to transact. It will be called compression, but it is a result of the industry ignoring the value of buyer-agents for decades that they will become extinct.

RISE OF THE LIVE ANYWHERE MOVEMENT
Jimmy Woodard // Co-founder, Cloud Castles

Look, we all know the WFH phenomenon isn’t going away. It’s impossible  to put the cat back in the bag regarding our collective and  newfound lifestyle flexibility. Nomadism is here to stay (a history lesson for those keen to dive in).

To capitalize, Airbnb will launch two initiatives:

1. “Live from anywhere,” targeting the medium-term rental market
2. “Work from anywhere,” offering office spaces, houses, and ADUs as workspaces, which will come with a merger with WeWork (or a smaller competitor such as DeskPass, FlexDesk, or Codi)

GO FOR BROKE ON SECOND HOMES
Drew Meyers // Founder, Geek Estate

At prices upwards of $500,000 and even north of $1 million, the audience for shares of Pacaso homes is limited. But, once share prices drop close to $100,000, or even less, shares in second homes will fly off the shelves. The largest opportunity is not to target those willing to pay a million dollars for a slice of a $5 million mansion, but rather offering fractional ownership on a $200-300K ski cabin.

Pacaso already had a crazy 2021, leaping from a $75 million Series B straight into a $125 million Series C in a matter of months. Expect more funding, and the driving down of share prices. And, don’t worry, if you can’t afford U.S. prices: A few international players have exported the model to Central America and beyond (Ancana/Kocomo in Mexico).

Remember, if the idea of a Pacaso-style proptech house shared among founders, execs, and VCs interests you, I’d love to hear from you.

COSTAR LAUNCHES A MLS IN THE METAVERSE
Robert Hahn // Managing Partner, 7DS Associates

CoStar has never operated an MLS. It operates the closest thing to an MLS in the commercial real estate world, but in residential real estate, with all of the complications and different cultural norms from commercial, CoStar is a total novice. Before it can step in as a white knight, CoStar probably should know a thing or two about operating an MLS.

The Metaverse offers them the perfect opportunity to do so.

If digital land and digital buildings start trading, buyers and sellers and landlords and tenants will need a single place that has all of the inventory with some kind of verification of the property. I expect that CoStar will be a player in digital CRE in the Metaverse; they have the expertise, the credibility, and the opportunity to become that. It is a trivial matter, then, to extend that system to digital “residential” real estate as well. I’d guess that personal homes won’t be a huge thing in the Metaverse because, well, people don’t actually live in the Metaverse. But having been a longtime MMORPG fan, who owned a virtual house, furnished it with my trophies, had parties and Guild meetings there and so on… I’m fairly certain that at least some people of the Metaverse will want to own their own virtual “homes.”

It’s not a perfect match for the MLS in the real physical world, just like the Metaverse is not the real physical world. But it’s a close enough representation, just like the Metaverse is, and it will provide much needed practice for the team at CoStar to be ready for when the rules of the physical world changes. (Read longer version here).

BLOCKCHAIN ACTUALLY BECOMES USEFUL
Teresa Grobecker // CEO, Real Estate Consortia

Appraisals have become increasingly expensive and time-consuming as fewer people become appraisers. Appraisals are disproportionately more expensive in inner cities and rural areas, which disproportionately impacts lower-income buyers and minorities. In October 2021, the FHFA announced that desktop appraisals will become the norm, not just a bandaid during the pandemic. Going forward, realtors will still play an instrumental role by collecting the appraisal information through a Facetime-like app with a licensed appraiser. The sanitized report will remove racial bias from appraisals and the process will offer affordability and a quicker turn. Appraisal inspections—along with AVMs, inspection data, and land reports—will all be packaged and uploaded to the blockchain ledger as data NFTs pre-listing.

And finally, seller title policies will be logged on the blockchain and used as title-starters (the seed of a title report). Blockchain can also potentially reduce search fees, which are hard costs incurred by title companies. Reducing these hard costs could potentially pass savings on to the customer. Title insurance (finally) becomes more affordable.

As blockchain finally grows up and provides trackable monetary utility in the real estate transaction, real estate transactions will happen faster—DOM will drop by half—and transaction fees will undergo a pricing transformation.

METEORITE HITS THE SPAC MOVEMENT
Drew Meyers // Founder, Geek Estate

Vacasa, Sonder, and Inspirato are all embracing SPAC partnerships. Southport Acquisition Corp and its Ellie Mae veterans are seeking $234.6 million and a mortgage and real estate partner. And, amidst the recent lay-offs mess and Vishal Garg’s resulting “break,” the Better merger with Aurora Acquisition Corp is likely to proceed. All that said, the proptech SPAC craze will officially evaporate/crater in the year ahead.

The public markets simply don’t support the current valuations of companies being taken public. View is down since hitting the market, as are Hippo, WeWork, and Latch. Let’s be honest: How much proptech can public markets absorb? There are only so many transformative companies able to scale in the wake of skyrocketing customer acquisition costs in this age of endless noise.

CONSOLIDATION + M&A
Matt Knight // Founder, Proptech Angel Group

As great as the SPAC-a-palooza was in 2021, don’t expect that to continue in ‘22 (agreeing with Drew). It wouldn’t surprise me to see the same quantity of PropTech exits in 2022 as ‘21 but via a different avenue. One of our most important IPOs will be among them, and there are multiple interesting late-stage PropTech companies that will be highly-compelling acquisition targets.

Much like VTS did with Rise and Lane, expect to see more consolidation in the crowded niches. With all of these newly-public startups awash in cheaper capital, expect them to start buying more than they build relative to their feature sets.

And I wouldn’t confine that simply to the younger startups. With RealPage (Thoma Bravo) and Entrata (Silver Lake) now PE-owned, look for the PE playbook – sell/close non-core or low-margin business units and buy high-margin or new-market businesses.

CONTINUED EFFICIENCY GAINS PRICING RESIDENTIAL ASSETS
David Bluhm // Co-founder, Plunk

The world’s largest asset class both demands and deserves better than Home Price Index Reports based on a data-limited approach, published quarterly and reflecting information that is more than 60 days old.

As Wall Street moves more intentionally into residential real estate—now investing in housing at a massive scale—there will be an increasing push to develop the same analytical and forecasting tools that enable confident and frictionless investing in most all other asset classes. This will require both access to real-time, ground-truth pricing for an individual home as well as real-time tracking and monitoring of overall market and segment performance.

THE BIG GO BIG IN M&A
Greg Robertson // General Manager of MLS, Lone Wolf Technologies 

The past few years have been all about PE firms gobbling up smaller independent software companies, W+R Studios being one of them. In 2022, the consolidation will continue but it will be the bigger companies merging with other larger companies to become even bigger entities.

RESI PREDICTIONS

ZILLOW-AIRBNB DO THE UNTHINKABLE
Drew Meyers // Founder, Geek Estate

Rich Barton is no stranger to big bets, having already acquired Zillow’s largest competitor and the number two residential portal back in 2014. This time, he’ll see that joining forces  with Airbnb offers the chance to achieve complete domination over demand for short-term, midrange, and long-term accommodations, as well as deliver near unlimited real estate porn for voyeurs. There is an immense opportunity to better serve home sellers with a marketplace that offers what they genuinely want:

Any and all options to monetize their most valuable asset. That means everything from a Zestimate to a CMA to multiple cash offers from competing investors. Beyond that, an estimate for both long-term and short-term rental income, as well as a binding “bid” by a verified property management firm to take over management of the home in exchange for a percentage of the revenue.

The two companies working jointly on a home ROI dashboard with a built in marketplace would be a home run. Can egos and incentives line up?

COSTAR NABS ZAVVIE
Drew Meyers // Founder, Geek Estate

It’s no secret CoStar has set its sights on Zillow. On the heels of Zillow’s exit from iBuying, I made the case for Zillow acquiring Zavvie and integrating its product as the de facto “marketplace” into Zillow’s Premier Agent offering. CoStar snapping up Zavvie from under Zillow’s nose would be a nice move to stir the pot … and give them even deeper inroads with Zavvie’s very strategic network of mid-size brokerages.

REDFIN AND FLYHOMES GET HITCHED
Drew Meyers // Founder, Geek Estate

I can’t image the year ending without at least one of the major power buyers (Ribbon, Homeward, Flyhomes, Knock, Orchard) being acquired by a publicly-traded market leader. The union of two Seattle-based tech-enabled brokerages fits the bill for Redfin, a company that historically has not been super active in the M&A department (however, they did acquire RentPath in 2021).

CONTECH CENTRAL

Stephen Del Percio // VP & Assistant General Counsel, AECOM

I’m casting a wider, open-ended net with three broad predictions for the AEC/contech industries in 2022.

Civil infrastructure will remain central to the zeitgeist of the US built environment:
Another natural disaster—hurricane, heat wave, tornado, flood—will wreak havoc on critical components of US infrastructure (I wrote this prior to hundreds of motorists being stuck for 19 hours on I-95 in northern Virginia during a major snowstorm less than three days into the new year) while at least one high-profile infrastructure project funded through the IIJA (i.e. the Biden infrastructure bill) breaks ground prior to the 2022 midterm elections in January (the Gateway Tunnel in the NY Metro area, maybe?). Either, or both, will renew criticisms that the IIJA was too small and support a push for additional infrastructure spending in a new version of the Build Back Better Act, which stalled in the Senate prior to the 2021 winter recess.

As new federal (and state match) spending shakes loose from the IIJA, savvy entrepreneurs will apply existing proptech solutions to create new infrastructure-related data sets and run analytics against them, helping public- and private-sector actors capitalize on new project and investment opportunities created by this new funding environment.
I’m not entirely sure what this one will look like. But with $500B+ in new federal spending on its way (although perhaps not until the second half of calendar 2022), there is a lot of opportunity here to redirect venture and human capital out of the trenches of construction job site hardware, where so much of the contech activity has resided over the last few years.

The AEC industry leans hard into blockchain tech; a major legacy player launches a cryptocurrency, a token, or an NFT that crosses $1B in market cap.
According to sites like cryptoslate.com, most of the tokens launched to date that have some connection to transportation- and/or energy-related solutions are trading well below $50M in market cap (with a handful of exceptions). The engineering brainpower and push for digital innovation within legacy AEC companies will figure out a way to capitalize on NFTs and/or the fledgling metaverse land grab.

Closing

And, with that, that’s a wrap! Agree or disagree? What are we missing? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Predictions from around the Internet

• Seven predictions for 2022: Fresh Sounds of Jamaica Edition [Robert Hahn at Notorious ROB]
• My Terrible, Awful, No Good, Very Bad Predictions for Real Estate in 2022 [Brian Adams at Hooquest]
• 2021 in review, 22 perspectives for 2022 [Climate Tech VC]
• 9 Predictions Of What CRE Can Expect In 2022 [Katie Murar of BisNow]
• Industry Leaders Share What to Expect in 2022 [coUrbanize]
• Brad Inman’s real estate predictions for 2022: Here’s to a sober year [Inman News]
• What’s Next For Proptech In 2022? More Investment In Construction, Optimizing For The Gen Z Renter, And M&A [Sophia Kunthara at Crunchbase]
• Predictions 2022: Crypto, Climate, Twitter, and…Trump (sorry) [John Battelle]
• 22 predictions for 2022 [The Hustle]
• What is going to happen in 2022 [AVC – Fred Wilson]
• What to expect from Proptech in 2022 [The Motley Fool]

Prior Geek Estate Predictions & Reflections

• 2021 Predictions // Reflections
• 2020 Predictions // Reflections
• 2019 Predictions // Reflections
• 2018 Predictions // Reflections
• 2017 Predictions // Reflections

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[Note from editor: The “Mastermind Showcase” highlights companies and news from members of the GEM. Today’s showcase: Rhove.]

Rhove enables any consumer over the age of 18 to invest in real estate projects with as little as $1. Investable projects include co-living, co-working, and commercial real estate in new, existing, and repurposed developments. Consumers without Accredited Investor status can invest in these projects and receive shares at prices that reflect expected future cash flows of the property. For crypto enthusiasts, Rhove utilizes the Etherum, Metamask and Aave protocols.

What we like: With a goal of democratizing commercial real estate investing, there’s a strong focus on community (that’s what we’re all about) and helping people invest in their local communities. Further, they are one of several companies working toward doing what AngelList did for startup syndicates, for real estate syndicates.

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Editor’s note at time of publishing: Rhove is “testing the waters” right now and is not soliciting any payment or exchange of securities.

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[Editor’s Note: We publish a Weekly Transmission for GEM members, a series of long-form articles covering the spectrum from shipping container co-living spaces to the battle for listing acquisition in the first iBuyer world war. Below, I look back on a year that saw the end of Zillow Offers, MLS transformation, exit from Katerradise, and an influx of climate capital. Plus, a variety of GEM members reflected on their 2021 predictions. Many links included are to members-only articles, so won’t be accessible without an account already setup.]

Following a year of record-breaking uncertainty, 2021 was the year that just was. We almost turned the corner on Covid-19. October sure felt like it—we hosted three networking events of more than 50 people and a private dinner for 22. And then, well, it all came to a screeching halt. That elusive-but-much-promised “return to normalcy” now looks like another bleak winter confined to activities with close family and friends—travel and conventions once again simmer on the back burner. In short, it’s a year we’re ready to have in our rearview mirror. Here’s what else changed in 2021.

1. Bye Bye Zillow Offers: The shockwaves of Zillow’s iBuying shutdown were large and long lasting…the industry topic de jour for weeks. Literally, I’ve never fielded so many questions about a single company announcement (the HomeSnap acquisition by CoStar probably rings in second). What’s the future hold for the once-again-a-media portal? Well, as long as its stranglehold on buyer demand remains, Zillow can be whatever it wants to be. I suspect that will include seeing Zillow returning to the same offers marketplace trough it frequented several years ago, and you can bet a portion of the cash lost flipping homes will be used for fresh M&A in the coming year. No need to dwell on this though, since it’s been discussed ad nauseum already. But don’t let that erode the fact that this was the defining strategic shift of the year, with implications years into the future for companies competing in its wake.

2: MLS Transformation: Even if it’s at a snail’s pace, consolidation is nothing new. With the DOJ threatening to divorce commissions, Zillow gobbling up ShowingTime’s lock on some of the most valuable data in existence, and PE’s infiltration of CoreLogic, it feels like the MLS establishment is being attacked from all sides. A wide range of strategic moves are being made to counter: forming a tech collective seeded with Agent Inbox’s assets, buying Remine as a group, and even making strategic venture bets. And data normalization continues to progress as RESO marches forward, one step after the other. As long as Sam DeBord is at the helm, count on that continuing. It’s a crazy time to be alive, but it’s definitely an even crazier time to be making a living in the MLS industry.

3. A Lone Dream Team Emerges: Lone Wolf Technologies is a serious competitor to MoxiWorks and Inside Real Estate. What began at the tail end of 2020 with the W&R Studios acquisition continued into 2021 with the acquisitions of HomeSpotter and LionDesk. Its historical roots in back-office and accounting make it the best positioned of the three due to the power of accounting software lock-in (look no further than Yardi, Entrata, and RealPage as proof in multi-family). Lone Wolf’s string of acquisitions all involve executives with long-standing reputations (including Greg Robertson, whom I would call the godfather of MLS tech) that will help cement Lone Wolf as a trusted (non-threatening) company to do business with.

4. Exit from Katerradise: This startup had been contech’s beacon of hope since its founding in 2015. However, bankruptcy filings showing $1.29 to $1.55 billion owed is a stark reminder of the pace of change. And, of the glacial movement on ground up development projects that are years in the making. Leaving employees out to dry, as well as abandoning hundred-plus million dollar construction projects midway through, will hurt future companies following in its path. Multinationals, city governments, and real estate developers with huge multi-year projects spanning apartments, houses, hotels, office buildings, industrial buildings will be even more hesitant to partner with an unknown tech entity—and rightly so.

The residential analogy is if Opendoor just went belly-up with bankruptcy filings, lay-offs, and an asset fire sale from one day to the next. The contech sector will be reeling from this one for years. For those curious to get into the weeds, read this analysis from Brian Potter, a Katerra employee from early 2018 to the end of 2020.

5. Climate Capital Influx: Climate change continues to see soaring interest: “Active climate tech investors rose from less than 900 in the first half of 2020 to over 1,600 in the first half of 2021,” and “the average size of a climate tech deal almost quadrupled … in the first half of 2021.” In our industry, the first CREtech Climate Virtual Summit has come and gone. Michael Beckerman of CREtech and Brendan Wallace and Greg Smithies of Fifth Wall recently went deep on the state of Climate Tech in the Built World. “Large [industry] players such as Equity Residential, Hudson Pacific Properties, Invitation Homes, Ivanhoe Cambridge and others” have joined Fifth Wall to the tune of $140 million. Let’s beat the drum again: The time is now. We’ll also continue making climate a part of the narrative in the GEM. Know an interesting company or story that should be on our radar? Let us know.

REFLECTIONS FOR 2021

How did we fare? Let’s take the time to reflect on several of the predictions and trends published a year ago.

Without further ado …

TRENDS

SUPER TEAMS TAKE CENTER STAGE
Guy Gal // Founder & CEO, Side

Agent teams consolidating market share will continue to intensify, as it did throughout the pandemic. Everhome Real Estate, now netting north of $200 million in annual sales, is just one example of the formation of “superteams.”

This trend emerged at Side four years ago, and it will continue to play out across the industry until far fewer agents work in teams to represent a much larger share of total transactions. This is great for the consumer, for the public good, and for dedicated experienced full-time real estate agents and teams. It’s terrible for traditional brokerage models that make most of their money from less productive agents that pay much higher fees and facilitate transactions as a group of 1M+ part-time and casual practitioners.

DM: While the announcements have slowed heading into the holidays, the year was a flurry of activity…Compass to The Agency, Sotheby’s to Compass, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices to Compass were among the migrations we saw in 2021. Side continued to grow, helped by its $150 million Series D back in March.

Verdict: Win

RATES STAY IN THE ONE-PERCENT
Dan Green // Founder & CEO, Homebuyer

Mortgage rates will fall through at least Q1 2021. Home buyers blessed with fortuitous timing will get rates beginning with a one.

Eventually, rates will climb. They’ll tack on 100 basis points in a month. There will be talk that rising rates will grind housing to a halt. It will only be talk, though—actual home buyers won’t care that mortgage rates are up. They’ll continue to relocate, and first-time buyers will take advantage of the Biden First-Time Buyer Tax Credit in larger-than-expected numbers.

Furthermore, the FHA will reduce both upfront mortgage insurance premiums and monthly insurance premiums for its borrowers, reducing homeownership costs this year.

By Q4, mortgage rates will reach a plateau before slow-sliding into 2022.

Dan: More early than wrong!

Early in the year, a small number of home buyers paid points to access 1-handle mortgage rates but most buyers skipped those extra fees and took what the market gave them. Rates may retrace in early-2022.

First-time home buyers put steady pressure on the market’s bottom two tiers and, despite the $15,000 Homebuyer Act and $25,000 First-Time Home Buyer Grant still living in committee, U.S. buyers forged ahead. Demand for housing is rolling up into 2022, when one or both bills are expected to pass.

Furthermore, the FHA is holding a massive capital surplus and is expected to drop mortgage insurance rates shortly.

Verdict: Draw

OFFLINE TO ONLINE ACCELERATION + “THE GREAT RESHUFFLING”
Errol Samuelson // Chief Industry Development Officer, Zillow Group

2020 further revealed the need to simplify, streamline and digitize antiquated processes such as in-person appraisals, filings, and closings, to meet the needs of today’s home shoppers. In real estate, the shift offline to online is accelerating and the virtual tools consumers have adopted for safety are quickly becoming their expectations for convenience.

As we look at the broader housing market, we believe the trends we saw in 2020 will have a positive and lasting impact in 2021 and beyond. In 2020, home was the headquarters of our lives. We spent the year retooling the meaning of home, work, and life in between. The experience has uncorked new aspirations and hopes of what home can and needs to be.

The shift to remote work will have a lasting and positive impact on real estate. First-time home buyers in major cities are no longer tied to neighborhoods close to the office, and many are searching for homes with more space for a home office or other family needs. This shift is what we call “The Great Reshuffling,” and we believe it will be the defining cultural trend of the decade. Demographics support our expectation of a lasting interest in home-buying as millions of Millennials are entering their prime home-buying years. As people reimagine and reshape the way they work, live and play, they increasingly will be relying on new technology to safely navigate their lives.

Verdict: Win

CONTACTLESS TRANSACTIONS
Dave Garland // Managing Partner, Second Century Ventures

The pandemic has paved the way for touchless experiences across the entire real estate sector from virtual staging and listing tools to digital escrow and remote online notarization. Sizeable deals illustrate the flow of capital to support the incredible demand for contactless tools including;

• Compass acquisition of digital closing startup Modus
• Stewart acquisition of NotaryCam
• Video tour software company Realync’s recent $22M raise
• A surge of investor confidence in shares of DocuSign

While the pandemic has been a catalyst for demand, many of these virtual tools have been around for years, some inhibited by regulation.  As demand rises at unprecedented levels with continued pandemic restrictions in place, we expect to see more support on a federal level for digital products and services. Online notarization, for example, is currently only available in 23 states–though legislation introduced in March through the SECURE act would open it up to consumers in all states.

Contactless tools will also serve the commercial sector as businesses return to offices at adapted capacities and as developers evaluate alternative space planning.

Verdict: Win

MORE POLICIES PUSH TECHNOLOGY IN RENTALS
Ryan Coon // Co-founder & CEO, Avail

Governments will continue enacting policies to improve rentals for landlords and tenants. We’ll see more efforts to encourage reporting of on-time rent payments, security deposit alternatives, and perhaps even a rental registry. With technology, rental markets will become more transparent, more efficient, and more fair for everyone.

Ryan: As expected, the government stepped up in a big way to support landlords in renters who were affected by the pandemic. More than $12 billion in Emergency Rental Assistance has been distributed so far, with roughly $30 billion still unallocated. We’ve also seen efforts to increase reporting of on-time payments by entities like Freddie Mac and Esusu. There’s still a lot of room to make local rental markets operate more smoothly, and I expect we’ll see more developments in the year ahead.

Verdict: Win

BFR IS A BFD
Dennis Steigerwalt // President, Housing Innovation Alliance

The single-family homes Built For Rent (BFR) category is experiencing significant growth as both a housing product and an industry.

Over the next several years, single-family residential construction will experience a period of rapid growth, adaption, and innovation impacting the way the industry operates and evolves to deliver both for rent and for sale products.  Although BFR makes up small portion of residential construction today, with established industry leaders and emerging players quickly taking strong positions and billions in new capital allocations announced almost monthly, there is an implied need for speed, quality, and performance with a long-term investment horizon which creates a game-changing opportunity for widescale adoption of innovation.

Outside influencers and stakeholders are looking at this through the lens of industry analysis developed by teams at McKinsey & Company and Dodge Data & Analytics. This tipping point for innovation, in what has been a slow-to-digitize space, will not only affect rental product but yield positive spillover effects into the single-family for sale solutions. This opens the door for long-awaited industry advancements in automation, integration of robotics, new building materials, and new partnerships which will significantly disrupt the existing supply chain.

The net result will be both an opportunity and threat for existing players through the evolution of new and more productive business models, partnerships, and capital opportunities.  We believe that the BFR industry will be a key element in the improvement of the productivity of the overall housing industry and will be an important driver in the improvement in housing availability and attainability.

What to watch for…

1. Single-family homes built new, specifically for rent, at scale and in communities, has come of age.  It took a decade to be understood and accepted but that acceptance is now set. Many of the underlying trends, such as suburban migration and the erosion of societal bias towards renting, supporting this segment were accelerated by the pandemic.
2. The next stage of industry development will be in the refinement of the business model, including the introduction of more digital tools for customer acquisition, an expansion of factory-built off-site solutions for production, new forms of customer financial relationships, and an evolution in a customer service model that will drive higher value.
3. These evolutions will serve to accelerate products and methods that will prove to be superior to those currently used in the for sale industry, these will be translated and adopted by for sale builders – accelerating innovation there as well. Increasingly, companies with this product as their primary offering will be joined by others where both rentals and sales are offered side by side.
4. Many of the coming changes will be driven by new entities, Joint Ventures, and partnerships.  Supply chains will be reformed and new relationships among existing players will be developed.

Dennis: This asset class is aggressively sought after and the subject of heated policy debates. With $40B+ in capital looking for projects, we’re seeing new types of partnerships forming to accelerate time-to-market, and new entrants are carving out their niche. A number of industry executives estimate that build-for-rent housing solutions could be as much as 20-25% of annual housing starts in the next five years. Similar to recent announcements from Bettr Homes, we’ll see this asset class continue to accelerate the adoption of new building methodologies, systems, and products to deliver a better home and experience.

Verdict: Win

BIG DATA BECOMES A BIG DEAL
Rachel Allard // SVP Strategy, Union Street Media

The technology used to collect and use consumer data is changing. And major tech companies are battling for the survival of their ad businesses as they know it. Increased focus on privacy and regulation such as GDPR and CCPA have forced changes to third party tracking, which fuels online advertising. For example, Google is eliminating support for third party cookies and Apple will require apps to receive permission from users before collecting their data—Facebook is waging a war against Apple to prevent that change (with 100 million iPhone users in the U.S. alone, the Facebook app would be hugely affected). These changes could fundamentally shift how real estate companies acquire and reach their customers online.

There is a solution: Invest in first-party and big data capabilities. Companies are really going to have to think about how they structure, track, and take action from their owned and operated digital properties and the people who interact with them. This likely means an end to rapidly spinning up new content without an overarching strategy, and the start of reconsidering how to create and measure the best customer experience, as well as how to marry online and offline data. Other industries have focused on this for a decade plus, so it’s about time real estate catches up.

Rachel: Like many things, there’s a wide range of investment in data capabilities in the real estate industry. This year saw some notable acquisitions, such as JLL’s acquisition of Skyline AI to, among other things, better predict future property values. In the building operations space, companies like SmartRent are using big data to provide valuable solutions, such as parking space optimization. In the residential space, innovation and adoption still lags. Privacy changes have forced some updates to how data is handled and the opportunity still exists to marry online and offline data to create a better online experience for buyers and sellers. The data’s there; it’s a matter of connecting and applying it in new ways.

Verdict: Draw

A NEW AGE OF AFFORDABLE URBAN HOUSING RISES
Bryan Copley // Founder & CEO, CityBldr

In its quest to upset everything we know, 2020 has offered a possible fix for the affordable housing crisis. Where that housing will be located is the real surprise: in the heart of large cities.

Commuting to the office previously drove workers to live near their workplaces. The work from anywhere phenomenon (and the success of this global, synchronized experiment for many companies) has driven the epicenter of housing demand outside the urban core.

Housing prices have shot up in the suburbs in response to excess demand for all housing types, but only luxury and class A housing has seen major price declines in cities. Why? Because those who can’t work from home still want housing near their jobs, and 88% of jobs are located in metro areas.

Because of this, affordable urban housing has virtually inexhaustible demand.

Reasons cities will start delivering unprecedented volumes of affordable housing in 2021:

1. Steep rent declines. Urban rents have dropped—a trend that will continue into late 2021. This increases the affordability of existing multifamily housing stock as work from anywhere proliferates beyond the pandemic (albeit at a slower pace due to the COVID-19 vaccine and an inevitable end to the pandemic).

2. Modular housing companies are maturing from early stage (Seed and Series A) to growth stage—where the mandate shifts from realizing product market fit to accelerating growth at scale—at the perfect time.

3. Cities will either throw weight behind promising solutions to the urban affordability crisis or suffer the one-two punch of rapidly declining tax bases coupled with rapidly increasing homelessness. Things can still worsen from here. Smart cities know this, and will act decisively before the problem is beyond their control.

Let the new urban age commence.

DM: The need is there, but affordable housing stock remains in short supply.

Verdict: Loss

DEBUNKING THE CITY EXODUS
Brad Cartier // Head of Marketing, Hostfully

Despite the ongoing analysis and data surrounding the flight to rural, small town, and suburban living as a result of the pandemic, we will begin to rethink the positive value of city-living.

Outside of a handful of expensive urban centers (NYC, Seattle, Austin, etc), city planners, architects, investors, and community organizers will find new ways to optimize real estate assets for safe and enjoyable interaction between residents/tenants and spaces. The “15-minute city” (see: Newsletter #147) will become mainstream, and the increased popularity of light densification initiatives will propel a renewed interest in urban spaces for all.

Brad: The suburban shift promoted by the pandemic is easing, and the trend toward light densification will only increase. Since the start of the year, the massively controversial SB9 in California was passed which essentially bans single-family zoning and allows up to 4 units on a single lot in most areas (more of my thoughts here). Affordability will only get worse in 2022 with low supply, high demand, and labor and supply shortages. For 2021, the light densification with upzoning and allowances for duplexes and accessory dwelling units by right increased dramatically: California, Berkeley, Connecticut, Seattle, Washington state, Bloomington, Raleigh, Chicago, Austin, Tucson, Sarasota, and even the Federal Government, to name a few.

Verdict: Win

TAX POLICIES FUEL UNPRECEDENTED CORPORATE ENTERTAINMENT SPEND
Brian Mommsen // Founder & CEO, Resident

As vaccines are deployed and we reach herd immunity, companies will race to bring human connectedness back–both internally as well as with external customers/partners/stakeholders. Though I suspect the shift back to five-day a week office life will be a multi-year crawl, new tax policies will trigger an explosion of corporate entertainment spend by year’s end. Deducting 50% of meal expenses on federal taxes has been the case since the 1980’s. However, “A proposal championed by the White House and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) would increase that deduction to 100 percent,” according to The Washington Post.

Restaurants and brands strong enough to survive could see their best margins in decades thanks to increased corporate spending, lower rents, and an expanded outdoor dining footprint.

DM: The news here is that the world still hasn’t kicked Covid-19 to the curb…thus, corporate entertainment spend hasn’t exploded.

Verdict: Loss

Overall 2021 Trend Score: 6-2-2

RESI PREDICTIONS

STOCK PRICES FOR ZILLOW, REDFIN, AND REALOGY TUMBLE BY AT LEAST 20%
Terry Dwyer // Consultant

All three companies have track records going back at least a few years and all three (along with a good part of the market) have benefited tremendously from what Alan Greenspan described in the late 1990’s as “irrational exuberance.” By any rational valuation measure, all three are way overvalued. At some point, common sense will return to the stock market and this will result in some of the air being let out of these three balloons. A year from now, we’ll see at least a 20% decline over present prices.

Terry: Notwithstanding Zillow’s iBuying implosion, this was pretty easy to call. Q4 of 2020 had all the earmarks of a statistical outlier in terms of the housing market and stock prices in the sector.

Verdict: Win

COMPASS TAKES THE SPAC
Drew Meyers // Founder, Geek Estate

The SPAC proptech flurry is here to stay, and Compass is up next. Despite my initial questions and skepticism (which I’ve heard echoed by many others privately), the company will have no trouble portraying itself in a favorable light to the public markets. How it fares once there, well, that’s a discussion for another time. The brokerage juggernaut, complete with stellar marketing and more money than the brokerage industry has ever seen, will pull the trigger on a strategic SPAC partnership before we ring in 2022.

DM: While the company is now a public entity, it didn’t take the SPAC.

Verdict: Loss

BUY-SIDE COMMISSION RATES NOTICEABLY TREND DOWNWARD
Terry Dwyer // Consultant

I would predict that the average buy-side commission rate will drop 50% by this time next year, but things don’t move that quickly in the brokerage business. However, by fall of 2022, I predict it will have dropped 50%. The proposed NAR/DOJ settlement will also result in a bunch of buyers’ agents dying on the vine because a 50% drop in the cost of doing business will not accompany a 50% drop in their commission rate. Jeff Corbett explored the implications of the divorcing of commissions for those interested.

Terry: Between the DOJ activity and increased market share for iBuyers (including Redfin), there’s still a good likelihood that they will trend downward more noticeably in 2022.

Verdict: Draw. For now.

EXP ACQUIRES REALOGY
Drew Meyers // Founder, Geek Estate 

Rather than raising $400 to pay down debt, why not sell Realogy to eXp, the virtual brokerage growing like a weed? With eXp’s market cap ($4.23B) approaching triple that of Realogy ($1.68B), such a takeover would be a bold and risky move–but one that wouldn’t completely gut the balance sheet. There’s nothing like bringing the largest competing franchise under its umbrella, despite its debt, to kick off the new year.

DM: It didn’t happen. That’s the takeaway.

Verdict: Loss

IBUYER FAILURE (carried over from 2020 reflections)
Jon Boller // Sales Leader, AWS Startups

I’m still a believer, but let’s push this 2020 prediction to 2021. Covid-19 delayed the impending failure because iBuyers stopped buying homes entirely—activity is down 80% year-over-year in Q3 according to Redfin numbers. But, now Opendoor is publicly-traded, Offerpad has partnered with new construction buyers, and Sundae raised a cool $36 million Series B to go after truly distressed properties.

No public company will get away with this level of volatility. I see the stock prices of publicly traded stocks converging, ZG’s stock price is up due to three things:

1. traffic growth leading to increased leads due to Covid-19 (revenue crush in this segment);

2. iBuying revenue volume (OPEN will neutralize this as it gives a clear a/b test à la Uber/Lyft, and in this case OPEN is Uber);

3. better execution (this will continue to get better) due to changes in internal legacy teams.

With a supply and demand imbalance making an even worse outlook, I look forward to watching the model fizzle as the world returns to normalcy post-vaccine.

DM: Zillow exited iBuying in grand fashion.

Verdict: (Resounding) Win

Overall 2021 Resi Prediction Score: 2-1-2

CONTECH CENTRAL

Stephen Del Percio // VP & Assistant General Counsel, AECOM

THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WILL ACT ON INFRASTRUCTURE WITH FEDERAL STIMULUS 

The knock-on effects will be positive and profound for contech/proptech startups. “Infrastructure” will also include significant increases in spending on 5G rollout, data center construction, and other digital infrastructure.

Stephen: This prediction looked pretty dicey for a spell during the summer while the bi-partisan infrastructure bill was held up in the House. But in the end, President Biden’s  $1.2T Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) crossed the finish line this fall, authorizing $550B in new spending on surface transportation, transit, clean energy investments, and (as I predicted) broadband. In fact, the IIJA purports to spend as much on digital infrastructure ($65B) as it does on rail and Amtrak ($65B).

Verdict: I could quibble that the overall amount of new spending could (and should) have been more, but this is a big win for the industry, for the country, and for my prediction. Win.

CONTECH VC WILL CONTINUE TO GROW YOY

From $1.3B in 2020 (up 56% from 2019), let’s call it an even $2B that will flow to contech in 2021. Startups in the labor, remote inspection/robotics, and supply chain sectors will outperform as COVID continues to impact industry productivity and efficiency.

Stephen: This prediction was a hanging curveball that hasn’t landed yet. According to CEMEX Ventures, over $4.5B was invested in construction tech startups in 2021—more than triple the $1.3B in 2020, and topping the previous record of $1.5B in 2018.

Verdict: Win

AEC CONSOLIDATION 

Call it “COVID consolidation” if you want, but a flurry of M&A activity in the AEC sector will be led by large publicly traded players sensing an opportunity to capture increased market share and improve efficiencies. Coupled with COVID, the industry’s persistently tight margins will drive employee-owned and mid-sized public companies in particular to seek sanctuary in the arms of those large buyers.

Stephen: For the first time ever, the U.S. AEC industry saw more than 400 M&A transactions in 2021. Fueled by private equity and small- to mid-sized firms either recapitalizing or selling out, this was a 33% increase over 2020 (and we still have a couple of weeks left in the year.) But none of these deals were a transformational combination of “large publicly traded players” as I predicted a year ago.

Verdict: Draw, but I plan to roll this prediction over into 2022 on the heels of the IIJA, so stay tuned.

CONTINUED SPAC ACTIVITY 

At least one SPAC will merge into a well-known startup in the contech space.

Stephen: SPAC transaction volume will hit a record high in 2021. But pundits questioned the long-term sustainability of the model during the second half of the year as newly minted SPACs underperformed against market indices and regulatory scrutiny increased. Either way, this prediction also fizzled out. For example, ProCore took a traditional route to the public markets through its IPO in May, seeing its stock surge nearly 35% on its first day of trading. A robotics firm called SPARCOS did merge with a SPAC, but it’s a stretch to call this manufacturer of exoskeleton equipment a “well-known” contech startup (even if its Guardian product looks pretty cool/terrifying).

Verdict: Loss

INCREASED SPENDING ON AR/VR APPLICATIONS FOR BUILT ENVIRONMENT ASSETS 

According to the International Data Corporation, 37.4% of all 2020 spending on AR/VR occurred in the consumer market sector, followed by distribution (23.4%) and manufacturing (19.3%), with infrastructure lagging (4.1%). Expect that last figure to increase in 2021 post-pandemic as technology improves, AEC firms continue pivoting to digital, and governments ramp up further stimulus (see my first prediction).

Stephen: Unfortunately, 2021 was not the transformative moment for AR/VR in the built environment that I predicted. The biggest AR/VR story this year was Mark Zuckerberg betting Facebook’s future on the metaverse. Reaction there was tepid, to say the least, which could portend a bull case for the future of AR (rather than full VR) applications. I remain upbeat, however, about the potential for AR applications across the built environment. For example, at AECOM this year, our Digital AECOM unit launched a new interactive public project review product called PlanEngage, successfully deploying it with the Arizona Department of Transportation during the stakeholder environmental review process of an interstate highway project.

Verdict: Draw

KATERRA BANKRUPTCY

My last—and boldest—prediction. For the sake of the industry, I hope I’m wrong about this one. But Katerra is facing headwinds, competition, and bad press. Only $200M from Softbank prevented this prediction from already coming true in 2020.

Stephen: I don’t take much pleasure in being right on this one, so I won’t say much about it.

Verdict: (Resounding) Win

ADDING TECH LEGS TO BUILDERS
Dennis Steigerwalt // President, Housing Innovation Alliance

We’ll see an acceleration in innovation programs, where solutions are developed in partnership with national production builders acting as strategic investors to mitigate research and development risk in commercializing the next generation of game-changing core building system technologies (such as rheia’s HVAC air distribution system).

In an accelerating and disruptive environment, R&D helps create new value that also helps to differentiate from those who do not invest in R&D. Most industries invest 2-6% of revenues into R&D efforts. Broadly speaking, homebuilding barely invests at all. This “miss” lies at the feet of the boards of those companies as it gives away long-term strategic advantage and enterprise value.  Who does or provides R&D to industry players, how the R&D is funded, and then what capital is needed to commercialize these new products, methods, or tools will be one of the great opportunities for those with vision in the next decade.

Dennis: The programs underway in this area were conducted behind the scenes and with little press or fanfare. However, the Rheia story was highlighted mid-year and celebrated as a winning pathway to adoption and commercialization. While it may not have taken the shape we anticipated—direct partnerships between builders and new tech companies—pooled R&D platforms through government and private platforms are underway. We’ve also seen increased interest and investment from builders and real estate developers into investment vehicles operated by established venture teams. These innovation platforms have become even more sought after as we seek to understand the impact on businesses taking proactive, environmentally-friendly measures to deliver the built environments society needs to live, work, and play.

Verdict: Draw

Overall 2021 Contech Prediction Score: 3-1-3

And with that, let’s turn the chapter on 2021. Our “2022 Predictions” and “The State of Geek Estate” will come out after the New Year. Have a happy holiday season.

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The post Looking Back on 2021 appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

The past few years have been a case study in finding creative solutions for unpredictable situations. The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted global market conditions for every industry segment. Because of the fundamental need for shelter, employment, manufacturing and storage, the real estate industry has been at the forefront of these changes. The limitations of the pandemic have forced the key players to adapt and rethink their strategy to survive, and hopefully flourish.

As an example, a key advancement is the acceleration and implementation of 3D technology for the commercial and residential real-estate sectors. In digital spaces, having access to 3D information enhances decision-making by simulating a panoramic, high-resolution walkthrough and allowing for interactivity.

Until recently, the real estate industry was reliant on specialized 3D capture equipment to create interactive maps and develop engaging digital experiences. This was primarily due to the specialized nature of this technology and the skillset required to capture 3D information. Advancements in 3D capture technology are rapidly changing the landscape with accessible 3D capture options.

Mobile 3D Scanning
3D Scanning has emerged as a transformative force in the real-estate sector with the growth of detection sensors on smartphones. A key step in this growth has been the introduction of the LiDAR sensors in Apple devices. Operating at nano-second speeds, LiDAR is a pulsed laser that generates a 3D model with greater accuracy than just a simple camera. Now a standard feature in iPhone Pro and iPad devices, the inclusion of the sensor paves the way for improved 3D capture for users.

Before exploring the possibilities offered by smartphone 3D capture tools, let’s evaluate the existing 3D scanning tools available on the market.

‍
High-Precision LiDAR Scanner Equipment
High-Precision LiDAR scanner equipment is conventionally used for accurate 3D scanning for commercial purposes. This category of capture equipment is considered ‘high-end’ due to the cost associated with the capture process. Typically, these devices produce a point cloud, and some also capture 360 photos. The use-case for these devices is focused on precision.

Leica, NavVis, Riegl, FARO, Trimble, Artec, etc.

Image from LEICA BLK AUTONOMY

Specialized Proprietary Solutions (Mid-Range)
This segment includes proprietary solutions developed by third party companies to capture spaces and objects with 3D data. Matterport is the industry leader in scanning floor plans and creating virtual tours for users.

Matterport, Occipital Structure, Intel RealSense (sunsetting as of late 2021), REScan

Photogrammetry / Structure-From-Motion
This 3D capture pipeline involves processing many photos and videos into 3D geometries, based upon a three-dimensional coordinate measuring technique. These photos can be captured from UAV’s/drones or robots and are then post-processed on a desktop. Though anyone can perform basic captures, achieving the best results at scale requires specialized expertise and techniques such as Ground Control Points (GCP).

pix4d, DroneDeploy, RealityCapture, Autodesk ReCap Pro, Agisoft Metashape

‍
360 Panoramas / Videos
The simplest way to capture 3D information is by using an app for an Android or iOS device or a stereoscopic 3D lens on a DSLR camera. This practice is currently being used in the industry, for everything from virtual tours to construction monitoring. Usually, the panoramas are attached to floor plans, but they do not have any 3D data themselves.

ricoh360, GoPro MAX, Vuze

Mobile LiDAR / Depth Capture
Apple was one of the first smartphone manufacturers to use LiDAR on its devices, introducing it on the 2020 iPad Pro, and then fitting it on the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max to enhance camera functionality and strengthen augmented reality (AR) applications. While it may not be as accurate as a High-Precision LiDAR device, its portability, cost, and ease-of-use make it ideal for many situations. Users can quickly capture spaces for reference, create floorplans, measure dimension and share 3D information.

3D Scanner App, PolyCam, SiteScape, Scaniverse, EveryPoint

‍

A Quick Comparison of Technologies / Solutions:

Real Estate Workflow and Mobile LiDAR
In this section, we are going to discuss how Mobile Phone LiDAR impacts:

• Sales and Marketing
• Property Management
• Architecture & Design
• Construction
• Facility Management & Maintenance

Industry Use Case
3D scan technology is being used to enhance data capture and implementation. Here’s how the process works:

1. Capture & Process – Capturing 3D information and processing it into a 3D model.
2. Display & Share/Publish – Rendering the 3D model on software or the web
3. Interact & Maintain – Proving interaction (i.e., measure, assets, etc.) and maintaining the state of the 3D information in dynamic environments (i.e., construction sites, etc.)

Sales and Marketing
Prospective customers rely upon a comprehensive visual outlook of the property to help them make decisions. Photos, videos, and floor plans are critical elements of marketing commercial and residential real estate because they allow customers to have a realistic overview of the property. Virtual home tours allow customers to have a comprehensive visual reference of the property from all angles. These tours have become a standard component of digital experiences by companies including Zillow 3D Home® Tours, VPiX, Pivo Real Estate, etc. Now Mobile LiDAR makes capturing and sharing 3D information even easier. A user can scan a location, convert it to floor plans and attach photos and video to specific locations.

‍Architecture & Design
Architecture and design were one of the first industries to adopt 3D from 3D building plans and renderings. But now, 3D is integral in even more ways, such as Digital Twins and BIM (building information modeling). 3D mobile scans are being used to capture spaces and display concepts and options with Digital Twins in AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality).

Construction
In construction, 3D models and information are now a critical component of Surveys, BIMs, Plans, Estimating. Construction Management software (Procore, Buildertrend, AutoDesk PlanGrid, etc.) involves 3D assets, and some solutions are even more focused on image and 3D information processing (Cupix, OpenSpace, Prevu3D, etc.). In the construction industry, mobile 3D scanning works in conjunction with high-precision LiDAR and photogrammetry, where scans can be augmented to reference high-accuracy point clouds and be continually updated.

‍
Property / Facility Management
Although it may have been underestimated in the past, 3D information is increasingly adopted for insurance, documentation move-in/move-outs, inventory, and resource asset purposes. The ability to create scans that can then have machine learning processes analyze conditions (i.e., damage, etc.) is streamlining existing workflows and paving the way to improved analysis.

The Verdict
The evolution of 3D scanning technology is opening doors to an enhanced personalized experience in the digital real-estate sector. The marriage of machine learning with improved data collection is simplifying data usage and offering a much more affordable alternative, due to enhanced data capture. The need for this data capture is supported by the challenging circumstances posed by the pandemic, that have paved the way toward online experience serving as the primary platform for customer engagement.

The improvements in detection sensors are leading the way for high-resolution, navigable scanning and 3D detection. For technology companies, this development is a step forward to the next generation home experience, centered around consumer data.

Even though technical standards may compromise the quality and accuracy of some consumer-generated 3D data, it still serves as an invaluable resource in estimation and evaluations across digital 3D experiences. With the developments in smartphone technology and accessible sensors, we can expect mobile scans to become the primary source of 3D data in the digital real-estate sector with consumer-based virtual experiences. Improvements in hardware are being further enhanced by advanced machine learning algorithms and will undoubtedly generate even more precise spatial analysis.

The post Revolutionizing Real Estate: How Mobile 3D LiDAR will Change the Industry appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

[Note from editor: The “Mastermind Showcase” highlights companies and news from members of the GEM. Today’s showcase: Red Oak Realty.]

Founded in a hot tub in Albany 40 years ago, Red Oak Realty is an independent brokerage that has grown to over 160 agents in the San Francisco East Bay Area. With 20 staff members supporting its agents for a 8:1 agent to staff ratio.

In 2010 Vanessa Bergmark took over ownership of the business and has grown Red Oak to second in Market Share in the East Bay cities they serve. With over 20 years of experience in advertising and real estate marketing, COO Aman Daro helps agents and company leaders leverage data and consumer insights to innovate, build systems and generate growth.

What we like: As one of the first first real estate brokerages on record to be carbon neutral and green-certified, they care about the future of the Bay Area community tomorrow, not just getting people in the community today.

Learn More

The post A Green San Francisco East Bay Brokerage appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

[Note from editor: The “Mastermind Showcase” highlights companies and news from members of the GEM. Today’s showcase: Homebase.]

Combining smart access control, community WiFi, device automation, and digital payments, Homebase provides property managers and tenants a hubless solution for smart apartments. With Homebase’s fully managed Community Wifi, landlords have the option to offer free wifi as a tenant amenity with options to upgrade internet speeds with Aruba network technology.

With integrations that include Stripe, Honeywell, and LG, tenants can use the Homebase app to pay their rent, change the thermostat and even check the status of communal laundry machines.

What we like: Acting as a value-added-reseller for IoT devices and internet service providers makes Homebase a single point of contact when servicing any part of a connected building, with a reported time savings of 20 minutes per maintenance ticket.

Learn More

The post A Unified Smart Home Solution appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

This week, we interviewed Christine Wendell and KC Krosby from Pronto Housing.

Let’s get to it!

Who are you and what do you do?

We’re Christine Wendell and KC Krosby, Co-Founders of Pronto Housing, the first & only off-the-shelf affordable housing compliance Software-as-a-Service platform, ensuring a higher-quality of living is accessible for the more than 11M Americans facing housing instability, while enabling asset managers to meet their financial goals.

What problem does your product/service solve?

Whether it is amid initial lease-up or annual compliance, owners and renters alike have historically faced slow and painful processes rife with uncertainty and risk. We’re laser-focused on ensuring a quick and easy process for both sides of the equation. By automating compliance for today’s US affordable housing programs, we reduce this friction, automating manual data entry and increasing transparency for asset managers and renters alike.

What are you most excited about right now?

Our SaaS platform is currently available in Beta with approximately 2,000 units onboarded, for property owners including Housing Trust Group, Lemor Development, as well as Laramar. We’re most excited to continue to add units across the country and provide a key, long-lasting solution to a critical, national problem: the housing crisis. Safe and stable housing is the foundation for people to engage with their community; facilitating that is our drive.

What’s next for you?

Over the next six-months, we’re hyper focused on utilizing funds from our seed round to continue to build out our state-of-the-art platform and recruit top-talent to support our growth and create a heightened level of service to users. We aim to be available to the larger US market post our series A. We’re anticipating starting to raise in 2022.

What’s a cause you’re passionate about and why?

Christine: I care a lot about prison reform and particularly the foster care to prison pipeline. There is a huge need for more humane responses to aid in healing people who are in or going through the foster care and prison systems in the US.

KC: One area where I’ve spent a lot of time is around children/adolescents with addiction issues. Addressing earlier in life provides opportunities for these children to grow into adults that will lead productive, fulfilling lives.

Thanks to Christine and KC  for sharing their story. If you’d like to connect, find Christine on LinkedIn here, and KC on LinkedIn here.

We’re constantly looking for great real estate tech entrepreneurs to feature. If that’s you, please read this post — then drop us a line (Community @ geekestate dot com).

The post Meet The Real Estate Tech Entrepreneurs: Christine Wendell and KC Krosby appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

[Note from editor: The “Mastermind Showcase” highlights companies and news from members of the GEM. Today’s showcase: Knock.]

A platform combining Sharon, a conversational AI bot, with a self touring experience for landlords looking to fill vacant apartment units, Knock handles the listing marketing to maximize the number of potential leads and conversions. After a verification process that includes credit and background checks, along with social media, email, and government ID verification, potential tenants can unlock the unit and perform a self-guided tour of the property. Landlords save on the costs associated with staffing an on-premise property manager to show units.

What we like: Every engagement is tracked in a dashboard that gives landlords the ability to make tactical data-driven decisions to increase unit ROI and learn from the feedback renters have about their properties.

Learn More

The post Smart Leasing To Quickly Fill Vacant Units appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

[Note from editor: The “Mastermind Showcase” highlights companies and news from members of the GEM. Today’s showcase: Side.]

Top producing agents, teams, and independent brokerages partner with Side to gain full ownership of their own brand and business without the headaches of operating a brokerage. A brokerage as a service covering marketing, tech, legal, and administrative that exclusively markets boutique brands, the company partners with agents to “predictably grow” their businesses and improve sales productivity.

What we like: They provide agents with the brand ownership and control they desire, and consumers the locally-based expertise they seek. It’s evident that Side’s philosophy is striking a chord as they continue signing high performers.

Learn More

The post Behind The Scenes Partner For Top Producing Agents appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

This week, we interviewed Giri Devanur from reAlpha.

Let’s go!

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Giri Devanur and I’m a tech entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of reAlpha, a cutting-edge technology company with a plan to empower everyone to invest in the $1.2 trillion short-term rental market. I served as the President and CEO of Ameri100 Inc., since its inception in November 2013. In 4 years, I scaled Ameri from $0 to $50M in revenue and completed the IPO on Nasdaq in under 4 years. I was also awarded the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017 and authored a book titled “Nothing to Nasdaq”.

I am a programmer at heart and inspire people to solve complex business and technology challenges. I have more than 25 years of experience in the information technology industry. In 2010, I founded WinHire Inc., an innovative company that builds software products through technology and human capital management experts and combines them with professional services. I also co-founded Ivega Corporation in 1997, an international niche IT consulting company with special focus on financial services. Ivega merged with TCG in 2004, creating a 1,000+ person focused differentiator in the IT consulting space.

I have an M.S. in Technology Management from Columbia University and a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Mysore, India. I also attended Executive Education programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Law School.

What problem does your product/service solve?

reAlpha is like the Robinhood of investing in Airbnb properties. What we have found is that short-term rental (STR) properties make +70% returns compared to long term rentals, making real estate investing lucrative again. reAlpha solves 4 core problems faced by 99% of Americans who aspire to invest in real estate:

1. No one has 25% down payment money (imagine organizing 100K for a $400K property.
2. Individuals don’t have access to the wholesale real estate market (only the big guys do)
3. No one wants to manage the pains of a short-term rental property.
4. No one wants to manage the extremely complex mortgage process.

To solve these problems, reAlpha sources and scores properties from the wholesale market using a proprietary AI-driven algorithm called reAlphaBRAIN. We then predict the viability of each property for Airbnb, as well as the projected long-term value. On our marketplace app (managed by a broker dealer) we then allow investors to become fractional owners in specific properties, providing meaningful wealth generation opportunities through short-term passive income via Airbnb as well as equity-driven capital appreciation. We also want people to experience the true pride of ownership, so they get access to go and stay at their properties too!

What are you most excited about right now?

We’re thrilled to offer Main Street investors access to become a shareholder in our company through our Reg A+ filing. We could’ve raised the money from VCs or private equity, but it was important to us to allow anyone to join our community as a shareholder. So, we are raising $75 Million which will enable us to go up to $750M in AUM. Once we build this initial portfolio, we will be opening up the reAlpha app, where people can then invest in individual properties.

Our proprietary algorithms, partnership network, and stellar leadership team make reAlpha a force in the emerging Airbnb market. Now with this additional financing, we are ready to scale our operations to create more investment opportunities and to create positive outcomes for the communities in which we operate. We have a great deal of traction in democratizing the massive $1.2 Trillion short-term rental market and investment process.

Short-term rentals are no longer purely transactional and occupancy driven. We are reimagining the entire guest experience end-to-end. The reAlphaHouse is the ultimate on-demand rental property. We implement various technologies, including smart locks, voice-activated electronics, home automation systems and innovative furnishings, to create an unparalleled guest experience.

What’s next for you?

Since reAlpha is a digital marketplace that enables its members to simplify wealth creation through investments in short-term rental properties while delivering an exceptional guest experience, our goal is to build a community with a million people. We have plans to acquire 15,000 properties in the next 5 years and empower 60,000 retail members to form investment syndicates for those properties. We are motivated to attract all types of people and serve different communities.

What’s a cause you’re passionate about and why?

I am passionate about education, as I come from a family of teachers. I would love to help a large number of inner-city kids with educational tools and opportunities to help achieve their dreams.

reAlpha is dedicated to bring our mission of simplified wealth creation to everyone. When we say everyone, we mean everyone. That’s why we are rolling out a flagship partnership that will give ownership and employment to our communities. We are setting aside 2% of our funding raise to be dedicated to the reImagine Fund. This will create up to $30M in real estate for underrepresented populations as well as enable reAlpha’s workforce opportunity program.

Thanks to Giri for sharing his story. If you’d like to connect, find him on LinkedIn here.

We’re constantly looking for great real estate tech entrepreneurs to feature. If that’s you, please read this post — then drop us a line (Community @ geekestate dot com).

The post Meet The Real Estate Tech Entrepreneur: Giri Devanur from reAlpha appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

[Note from editor: The “Mastermind Showcase” highlights companies and news from members of the GEM. Today’s showcase: ActivePipe.]

Let’s be honest… Sending cold emails and replying to your inbox is tedious. ActivePipe streamlines inbox management by automating and tailoring emails to stay in touch with each and every contact by utilizing behavioral data. On top of that, ActivePipe integrates with many major real estate CRM systems.

Using audience segmentation, personalized property preferences, and location targeting, ActivePipe emails deliver relevant property information to potential homebuyers at the right time.

What we like: Essentially, Mailchimp but with integrated MLS data. What’s not to like for agents? Plus, a host of CRM integrations including Booj, Cloze, and Follow Up Boss.

Learn More

The post Saving Time With Connected Email Automation appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

[Note from editor: We publish a Weekly Transmission for GEM members, a series of long-form articles covering the spectrum from shipping container co-living spaces to the battle for listing acquisition in the first iBuyer world war. Below is this month’s sample Transmission.]

NOVEMBER MONTHLY TRANSMISSION

BY DREW MEYERS
Originally Published: November 3rd, 2021

What started as an innocuous enough announcement from Zillow in mid-October has unleashed a storm. First, Zillow’s paused its Offers business—mildly notable in and of itself. But that telltale sign has presaged a much larger change for the real estate behemoth.

Hot on the heels of that announcement came news that it was seeking to unload 7,000 homes for $2.8 billion to institutionals. Then news of a full shutdown of the entire “Homes” (aka Zillow Offers / iBuying) business.

Combined, these changes hit more like a hurricane, or even a thousand-year flood than a mere storm. In other words, it’s been an absolute bombshell for the industry.

Three years ago, I wondered what if Zillow loses its shorts when it’s caught with a bunch of homes on the books when the market turns?

Well, with two-thirds of the homes priced under the original buy price, it happened. It’s now close enough on the horizon that Zillow wants to stop bleeding out.

Via its letter to shareholders, Zillow shares the core reason for its strategic change in direction:

We have been unable to accurately forecast future home prices at different times in both directions by much more than we modeled as possible, with Zillow Offers unit economics swinging approximately 1,200 basis points from Q2 to an expected -500 to -700 basis points in Q4 2021. Because of this price forecasting volatility, we have had to reconsider what the business might look like at a larger size. … We have determined this large scale would require too much equity capital, create too much volatility in our earnings and balance sheet, and ultimately result in far lower return on equity than we imagined.

According to Rich Barton: “Fundamentally we have been unable to predict future pricing of homes to a level of accuracy that makes this a safe business to be in.”

What if the strategic truth is that Zillow’s data shows a crash (or significant slowing) on the horizon? If that’s the case, its pullout could be the market indicator that accelerates the crash in a never-before-seen way. Let’s just hope that doesn’t happen and leave that discussion for another day. Rather, let’s focus on what this market event means for consumers and industry players.

BACK TO THE MARKET WE GO
I’ve been clear on the fact I believed Zillow’s initial iBuyer model, first launched as “Instant Offers” in 2017, was the right one. “Third party investors were the ones providing offers to home sellers, and Zillow just facilitated the conversation and helped coordinate the transaction using dotloop.”

What if being a direct cash buyer isn’t actually the best strategic way to capitalize on the opportunity to become the de facto home buying and selling marketplace? Or the inevitable home services marketplace that will be created on top of that once it exists?

As I noted at the time, “a transparent iBuyer marketplace will win out long term, and Zillow was not the best positioned company to take on the complexity at a hyper local level in every city across the country.”

There are alternatives to Zillow’s take on this problem: “Taxing the marketplace still seems to be the better model than buying and selling homes directly.”

In fact, Realtor.com’s sellers marketplace already enables multiple offers (including from Opendoor), as does Zavvie’s platform, which empowers agents to offer all selling solutions to their clients through one streamlined interface.

Expect Zillow to return to the same offers marketplace trough it frequented several years ago. That seems an inevitable next step as it winds down its cash offers operations.

COMPETITIVE IMPLICATIONS
With Zillow shaking up the landscape, several other companies are well positioned and just waiting in the wings:

Zavvie
Despite the fact Zillow competing with them directly just got a lot more likely or perhaps even imminent, Zavvie has the chance to become the biggest winner in this shift to fill the iBuyer vacuum. I’m honestly amazed that no one else has made a legitimate threat to Zavvie to date. If I’m Zillow, I’m acquiring the product and big brokerage integrations. Make it the de facto “marketplace” and integrate it directly into its Premiere Agent offering.

CoStar
Conversely, CoStar is in for a long, hard ride. Zillow just removed one of its “battlefields” from its mental bandwidth. Meaning its executive team will have more time to keep their sights centered on their core portal business. CoStar’s Citysnap battle in New York City and, eventually, its desire to compete nationwide, just got a lot more difficult.

Opendoor
Now clearly the uncontested category leader, can you imagine Opendoor offers being populated on Zillow home detail pages? Given their fierce rivalry, it’s hard to grok. But, Zillow found a way to bring Trulia under its umbrella despite being the competition. If the consumer really is the north star, this is a partnership to bring to fruition. And quickly.

Offerpad
Remember that Offerpad partnered with Zillow back in May of 2017. Of course, they pulled out of that partnership several months later—once they picked up on the signs of Zillow’s ambitions to make cash offers. Will Offerpad fold itself back into the Zillow marketplace, re-uniting the company Spencer Rascoff took public via a SPAC and his former employer?

Redfin
Glenn Kelman’s been consistent and transparent that “[Redfin’s] opinion [is] that most consumers would be best served selling their home while living in it, not to an iBuyer, but directly to the ultimate owner.” Redfin is really just doing the iBuying thing because it has to due to competitive pressures. Zillow’s exit could well end up being the fuel Redfin needs to escape to the hills.

Realtor.com
With a sellers marketplace already well established, I would urge the company double-down on product improvements focused on giving potential sellers instant gratification…without giving up contact information. You can bet that’s what Zillow will do. Beyond that, taking a strategic equity stake in RealSure wouldn’t surprise me.

FUTURE GAZING
Will Rich Barton walk away? The pivot to iBuying was the reason he came back to Zillow in the first place—it was reading Ben Thompson’s analysis of Opendoor and his “strategic tear-down of Zillow” that “got to his core.” I don’t see him running the same media/subscription business that has existed for a decade. The likely near term move would be doubling down on power buying with an acquisition of Flyhomes (which happens to be headquartered a mere blocks from Zillow HQ), Ribbon, or Homeward.

I’ve also long thought Airbnb will enter the long-term rentals picture—and, sooner rather than later. A Zumper acquisition or joint venture seemed plausible. But, perhaps going straight to the runaway category leader in audience can materialize now that Zillow’s eyes are no longer occupied with iBuying. Imagine if every Airbnb host could rent their property by the day, week, month, or … year. Airbnb is literally one database field away from being the largest long-term rentals platform in the world. But they don’t have a rentals brand to go with it. Imagine if hosts who chose the long-term route were able to syndicate properties directly to Zillow. Imagine if Airbnb data was integrated directly into a Zillow-owned Zavvie as well, and a property manager to revenue-share it was an integrated part of the marketplace. Sounds like a significant win for landlords to me.

The vacuum opened by Zillow’s announcement makes a fundamental rejiggering of the marketplace imminent. With so many players jockeying for attention, the status quo is being altered in front of us. Despite massive amounts of VC investment being thrown into the proptech fray, I think we’re actually at an innovation lull. Increasing capital efficiency and deployment is cool, but nothing “new” has emerged for consumers in quite some time. Barton is one of the most brilliant innovators of our time. Perhaps this bump will give him an even bigger chip on his shoulder to dream up a transformational real estate offering we haven’t seen yet. Maybe, just maybe, the “iPhone of real estate” hasn’t been created yet.

the GEM BRIEFING

A PRIVATE GROUP OF INDEPENDENT THINKERS, FREE FROM SPONSORED MESSAGES, SALES PITCHES AND NOISE

There are four parts to membership:

• Long-form articles covering the spectrum from shipping container co-living spaces to the battle for listing acquisition in the first iBuyer world war (Weekly Transmission).
• Curated real estate, startups, & built world links & analysis blended with out of the box ideas (Weekly Radar).
• Special reports (a category review of Small Landlord Prop Mgmt Software & quarterly earnings summaries).
• Networking opportunities with 400+ innovators from across the globe through the private forum & in-person gatherings.

OUR MEMBER PROMISE

• We deliver an exclusive, objective lens into the trends, companies, people, and ideas shaping real estate technology with thought-provoking analysis and conversations that keep you inspired every week.
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• We enable discovery and meeting others with shared interests online and in-person (whether they live near you or are traveling to the same conference).

GREAT THINGS ARE HAPPENING

• Transmissions and Radars have become a trusted signal for industry news and analysis.
• Articles and ideas are regularly discussed in product & strategy meetings.
• Our virtual workgroups bring together a diverse mix of C-Suite execs to discuss real issues.
• We’ve introduced members to new vendors, partners, and friends.

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The post Filling the Emerging iBuyer Vacuum appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

[Note from editor: The “Mastermind Showcase” highlights companies and news from members of the GEM. Today’s showcase: FloorPlanOnline.]

Floorplans are the third most important part of the listing for buyers, right behind photos and property details, according to NAR. FloorPlanOnline generates 2D and 3D floor plans to help prospective buyers see the complete property. Available as a do-it-yourself fashion nationwide and with a full service offering in the Las Vegas, Cleveland, Seattle, Southern California and Texas markets, its HGTV-like floor planner allows buyers to drag and drop furniture, change flooring or wall colors, or add/remove walls virtually.

When a home is sold, both the buyer and seller can claim the home from the tour and get a copy of the photos and floor plans put into their own private HomeDiary account to use as a management tool. Agents who invite clients to HomeDiary become their sponsor.

What we like: Having created its first Interactive FloorPlan Tour back in 2004, there is no one with more experience in the highly competitive floorplan arena. Plus, its integration with HomeDiary is a strategic advantage for agents/brokers that care about client loyalty (which includes all great agents).

Learn More

The post 2D + 3D Power Tools Serving Buyers appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

We have a job opportunity to share from a member of the GEM, Second Century Ventures, a subsidiary of the National Association of Realtors: Analyst, Strategic Investments

The opportunity:

Reporting to the Senior Associate, the Analyst will be responsible for supporting the Senior Associate in managing deal pipeline, conducting due diligence, producing financial performance and metrics reports, managing LP reporting, and assisting in developing efficient operating procedures as SCV grows into a global juggernaut. This candidate is a “go-getter”- well spoken, proactive and leads with a collaborative, team-oriented approach.

Location: Chicago or Washington DC

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Support the Senior Associate in all their responsibilities (deal pipeline, financial modeling and reporting, due diligence, negotiations, liaise with legal counsel etc.)
• Conduct due diligence and provide financial analysis to support investment decisions
• Support in negotiations and legal review related to new investments
• Monitor competitive landscape to identify new investment opportunities
• Perform industry and company research on an ad-hoc basis
• Develop and maintain complex financial models
• Track and report on financial health of portfolio companies and recommend appropriate action as needed
• Attend events, conferences, and other meetings as needed

Qualifications:

• 2+ years’ experience at a Venture Capital, Private Equity, Investment Banking, a startup, or similar
• Demonstrated knowledge and understanding of technology in general and specific experience in RE and Proptech
• Results oriented with high attention to detail, ability to multi-task, and meet deadlines in a dynamic, fast-paced team environment
• Ability to think in innovative ways to find solutions to problem
• Highly organized and possessing effective project management capabilities
• High level of proficiency with Microsoft Office—Outlook, Excel, Word and PowerPoint, Google Docs, WordPress, and HubSpot (or equivalent CRM)
• Exceptional communication skills—verbal, written, and presentation
• Ability to travel up to 10%

Interested?

Learn more and Apply

The post Proptech Job Opportunity: Analyst, Strategic Investments appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

In the past, property management hasn’t been a particularly tech-savvy industry, but modern technology is helping virtually every sector increase speed and efficiency. Even if you still prefer to manage your properties through paper receipts and spreadsheets, today’s Millennial and Gen Z renters are demanding technology as a part of their entire rental experience. Landlords who don’t incorporate at least the bare minimum tech features into their rental businesses are likely to fall behind in a highly competitive marketplace.

Here are some of the most popular technology methods I see utilized by my landlord and property management clients to streamline day-to-day operations:

• Property management software: There are countless software options available to landlords and property managers today with a range of features to efficiently handle daily tasks. Transferring your business to the cloud or a central software server will not only ensure all of your information is securely stored in one place, but it also allows for easy access for anyone who needs it (employees, renters, accountants, etc.). Industry-specific tools can help with tasks like screening tenants, collecting rent payments, managing maintenance requests and tracking property expenses.
• Virtual property showings: A trend that emerged during the pandemic, virtual property tours have been gaining popularity as a helpful tool for both tenants and landlords. Whether you’re taking advantage of 360-degree virtual property tours or completing tours via video like Zoom or FaceTime, the convenience of virtual showings is hard to deny and is a trend that’s likely to stick around long post-pandemic. These tools can be especially helpful for tenants who are moving from out of town or landlords who live far away from their rental properties.
• QR codes: Quick response (QR) codes have gained a lot of attention in recent years, especially during the contact-free times of the pandemic. A small, customized barcode that gives anyone with a smartphone direct access to information, QR codes are a great way to drive traffic to your rental listing and give tenants all of the information they need before they even contact you. Consider adding QR codes to your “for rent” sign, newspaper ad, flyers or any other marketing materials you use.
• Artificial intelligence: Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly penetrating almost every aspect of the real estate industry, and the rental market is no exception. AI is responsible for many of the rental search tools tenants use to find properties based on set criteria and preferences. In addition, an increasing number of property management companies are using chatbots or virtual assistants on their websites to increase communication with tenants and streamline simple day-to-day tasks.
• Smart home technology: Smart home technology can benefit both landlords and tenants by providing the opportunity to actively manage maintenance, improve security and prevent property damage. There are plenty of tenants in today’s technologically advanced world who are willing to pay a higher rental rate for tech-savvy features. Smart technology like security systems, appliances, utilities and sensors can all increase comfort, energy management and convenience.

It might seem like a burden to incorporate modern technology into your property management business, but the pros most often outweigh the cons when it comes to streamlining efficiencies. Taking advantage of technology specifically designed for property management will help your marketing efforts, increase your reach to help you find qualified tenants, and ultimately make your business more successful in a competitive market – I know it’s been a blessing for managing my own investment properties!

The post Top Tech for Landlords and Property Managers in 2021 appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

[Note from the editor: Originally published on Thomvest’s Blog]

I’m excited to release Thomvest’s real estate technology market map, which includes more than 240 companies operating within the residential real estate segment. This is the third update to the market map and includes over 100 additional companies — a testament to the pace of entrepreneurship in this segment. A high-resolution version of the map can be accessed here, the full list of companies is available here, and my commerical real estate market map is here.

So much has happened in the housing market over the last year — home pricing across the U.S. are up 16% year-over-year, interest rates remain near historic lows and housing construction starts are up meaningfully for the first time in more than a decade (for more detail on this, see my recent housing market update). Times have also been good for technology companies in real estate — several companies in the sector went public over the last year, including Opendoor, Compass, Better and Blend (a Thomvest portfolio company). Venture capital activity in real estate has also remained quite strong — investment in the category reached $8 billion through the first 9 months of 2021, a record.

This market map real estate technology companies operating across every phase of the home purchase value chain. These companies have collectively raised more than $30B in venture capital, and range from seed stage businesses to public companies. If you’d like to suggest a company to be added to this market map, please submit them using this form.

You’ll notice that several companies are included in more than one section — this is due to the fact that many of these businesses have expanded their product areas to capture multiple phases of the transaction process. For instance, while Blend’s original product focused specifically on the mortgage point-of-sale, the company has since expanded to offer title services, home insurance and closings. As such, we’ve included the Blend logo in those areas.

What’s getting us excited in residential real estate technology?

At Thomvest, we’ve long been excited about the opportunity to bring technology into the real estate segment, and have been fortunate to partner with many great companies. Personally, I’ve been impressed by the quality of entrepreneurs building technology companies in residential real estate. Many have experienced their own frustrations when buying or selling a property, and aspire to rebuild the experience from the ground up. Others are seasoned operators within real estate and see technology as a competitive advantage in an otherwise analog asset class.

In last year’s market map, I touched on the impact of COVID-19 and related lockdowns on the housing sector. In particular, the pandemic forced many constituencies within the real estate sector — including agents, lenders, title companies, attorneys and GSEs — to embrace digital tools. We expect adoption of digital tools to persist in a post-COVID housing market. For example, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) recently announced its intention to continue accepting desktop appraisals for purchase loans beginning in early 2022.

In addition to tailwinds around technology adoption in real estate, we’re particularly excited about a few areas within the housing value chain:

1. Expanding access to home financing options

While record home price appreciation has been a boon to existing homeowners, it increases barriers to homeownership for prospective buyers. This is particularly true for first time buyers or those without strong credit scores (the vast majority of mortgage originations in 2021 have gone to borrowers with credit scores of 760 or more). Companies like Landis and Divvy have become popular options for prospective buyers who need time to build up their credit and downpayment. Both companies operate a “rent-to-own” model, which allows buyers to gradually build up ownership of a home.

We are also fans of companies at the intersection of fintech and real estate that seek to streamline and accelerate the traditionally fragmented process of purchasing a home. This can include mortgage technology providers (like Blend and Maxwell) that minimize the need for multiple intermediaries and lower mortgage production costs for lenders. We expect this to be particularly important as mortgage rates rise over the next year, putting stress on lenders to become more operationally efficient.

2. Novel real estate agent and brokerage models

Agents continue to play an important in the home purchase process — 88% of buyers purchase their home through a real estate agent, according to NAR. But COVID has caused many agents to reassess the value provided by their brokerages, who typically capture between 15 and 30 percent of agent commissions. Several new brokerage models are emerging, which promise better commission splits to agents, as well as a more robust technology platform and other value-add services, such as renovation or financing. Companies like Side, PLACE, Enkasa and Radius are all developing interesting brokerage platforms for agents.

3. More tools for homeowners to manage their largest asset

As home prices continue to rise, homeowners’ equity in their properties represent an outsized portion of their total wealth. In the second quarter of 2021, homeowner equity grew by nearly $3 trillion, according to CoreLogic. As a result, we expect to see increased demand for financial products that allow homeowners to tap into this equity, which has historically been illiquid. Companies like Hometap and Unlock allow owners to access up to $500K of their home equity. And Point recently completed the first securitization of these home equity investment agreements, which should lead to better pricing for owners over time. We are also fans of companies that simplify the home renovation process (like Eano and Realm) and property management (like Baselane and Mynd), both important components of home ownership.

In the next few weeks I will also publish an updated commercial real estate market map.

The post Market Map: 240 Real Estate Technology Companies Transforming Today’s Housing Market appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

We have a job opportunity to share from a member of the GEM, New Western: a Senior Integration and Automation Engineer. Founded in 2008, New Western Acquisitions is a marketplace for investing in “off- market” homes.

The opportunity:

Our vision is to provide industry-leading, modern, and transformational tools enabling our business to scale and easily extend into new market/product offerings while offering convenience and optionality to our marketplace. We are looking for a talented Integration and Automation Engineer to join our established but quickly growing company, working on a wide range of automation and integration projects in close collaboration with business leaders, data scientists, product managers, and software developers. This position will be highly visible to Executive Leadership, and you will have the opportunity to be a key player as we transform and develop a modern full-cloud stack including Salesforce, Snowflake, Workato, Tableau, and AWS.
The Integration and Automation Engineer is responsible for building and maintaining systems integrations, business process automations, and ETL/ELT data pipelines on the Workato cloud platform. In this role, you will work with various business leaders to identify, map, design, and implement a variety of business process automations. Additionally, you will work closely with other engineers and developers to implement a REST API-based integration layer that simplifies and streamlines cloud-based systems and microservice integrations. And lastly, you will work with data engineers and data scientists to develop and manage ETL/ELT data ingestion integrations with our Snowflake data environment.

What You Will Do:

• This is a brand-new platform build-out. As such, you will be the primary leader guiding the way as we stand up the full Workato platform to help us meet the needs of our aggressive technology and business strategy.
• Work with multiple business stakeholders to identify a variety of business process automation opportunities. Process mapping and optimization skills are mandatory. Communication and facilitation skills are necessary to navigate the waters of “this is how we currently do it” vs. “this is how it could be done”.
• Work with product management and various developers to optimize system and microservice integrations via a REST API strategy.
• Work with data engineers and scientists to develop, manage, and tune data integrations to/from our Snowflake data environment.
• Oversee, secure, manage and administer the Workato integration platform.

Requirements:

• BS or MS in a technical field: Computer Science, Engineering or similar
• 5+ years professional experience working with Process Automation and Integration tools (Workato experience is preferred; experience with Zapier, Flow, Boomi, Tray. io, UiPath, Automate, Alteryx, Talend, Fivetran are acceptable)
• Architect level experience in API-led microservice design and implementation
• Experience with business systems including Salesforce Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Snowflake, HubSpot, Jira, and GitHub are a plus
• A strong architectural mindset, self-starter initiative, and a drive for completion
• Strong communication, writing, presentation, process mapping, and interpersonal skills

Interested?

Learn more and Apply

The post Proptech Job Opportunity: Sr. Integration & Automation Engineer appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.